A/N: Last year on June 20 the Strawberry moon (June's full moon that is) coincided with the summer solstice, which hasn't happened since 1948. It was an extremely rare and beautiful astrological event, and it got me really inspired when I learnt about it. Apparently, the full moon and June solstice won't fall on the same date until June 21, 2062.
Warnings: mentions of heat cycles, scenting, mating bonds and general A/O/B dynamics. Beware if it's not your thing.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and make no profit.
Naruto woke up to the fresh breeze coming through the half opened window to his right. It gently swayed the light green curtains littered with small yellow flowers and let in the first shy rays. The omega threw his arms up, hands hitting the board of the queen sized bed, and stretched his body so that his toes peaked from under the crumpled blankets, now laying askew and pooling on the floor on one side. A contended sigh left his lips, and cerulean eyes opened, then closed briefly as their owner blinked the last of sleep away. Finally his gaze travelled around the room to take in the surroundings, lit by soft morning light.
It was a small but neat and cosy country house bedroom, wallpaper brandishing an intricate and perky floral print in greens, yellows and blues, which surprisingly did not clash with the curtains, and seemed to only complement the dark oak furniture that was set tastefully around the room. A little bedside table to Naruto's left with a beautifully carved lamp in the form of some flower, a sturdy but compact wardrobe against the opposite wall, a desk with a matching chair beside it, and a comfortable looking armchair next to the window. It was perfect for a long awaited vacation.
'I was so right to listen to Sakura's advice and come here', thought Naruto as a lazy smile crept upon his face. When he talked to his colleague and childhood friend Sakura Haruno about his burning need to get away from the city hustle for a couple of weeks, the beta, after a brief moment of consideration, remembered a lovely village at the foot of the Fire country Mountain Ridge she used to visit with her parents when she was in grade school. She told Naruto then that it was the most peaceful place she had ever been at and assured him that he would definitely get his much needed rest there. Plus she promised that the food at Granny Chiyo's Inn is to die for. Naruto took her at her word, so that was where he currently stayed at.
The omega arrived in the evening, when the sun had already sat, so now he couldn't wait to see the breathtaking scenery that the photos on the Internet only hinted at. He rolled out of bed and stepped on the hardwood floor, which was polished so dutifully, that it felt smooth and sleek under his bare feet. It was also ice cold, as Naruto soon discovered, but that didn't stop him from walking to the window to open the curtains completely and look out.
He was on the second and top floor of the inn, which gave him a beautiful view of the lake and the valley that stretched in front of the wooden building. He could also make out the tops of the mountains that stood on the farthest end of the valley, and the small clusters of houses, where most of the villagers lived in. The ridge kind of bent around the area, going in half-circle. The colourful flowers gradually gave way to the thick tree line, which stretched rather high up the mountain slopes. Still, eventually, the trees became more and more sparse until bare rock could be seen, only slightly touched with snow. The mountains stood dark grey and uninviting, as the sun rose from behind the ridge and cast a deep shadow for miles. The rays, however, already reached the lake and the inn, making the water bright and sparkling and the bark of the pines that grew around the house joyfully orange. That made Naruto smile – orange, after all, was his favourite colour.
"Alright! Time for breakfast!" exclaimed the omega, and retreated back into the room to put on one of the several sets of clothes he brought in his medium sized brown suitcase. As he took it upon himself to study carefully the information about this place beforehand, Naruto knew that the weather here could be rainy even in the hottest days of summer, so he packed a rain coat together with a pair bathing shorts with bright pink flowers – a present Sakura got him for his eighteenth birthday and that he still used at twenty-five, so rare were his vacation trips to anywhere with a swimmable body of water.
Naruto honestly hoped he would be able to try out the lake, it was really inviting in the morning light, but he had suspicions that the chilly air would make it impossible so early. Not that it would be able to dampen his mood anyway. He was quite alright with staying indoors on rainy days, which also seemed like a very nice pass-time here, especially with the comfy deep armchair and the lovely view he had from his room.
The blond bent down to pick up the suitcase that the inn's porter Konohamaru, a cute young alpha from the village, put down next to the desk last evening. He told Naruto that he was working this summer to show his old man (his grandpa, as Naruto figured out later) that he was independent already – that is, at the very mature age of twelve. Naruto nodded encouragingly until the boy explained that his ultimate goal was to save up enough cash to take his eleven-year-old girlfriend Moegi to Fire Magic Land – a popular amusement park in the capital, that is, half a country away. As soon as the omega caught up on Konohamaru's enthusiastic but quite dangerous line of thought, being a dutiful social worker even on his vacation, Naruto tentatively tried to talk the young alpha out of his plan, but wasn't sure he quite succeeded. The boy only thanked him absent-mindedly for the generous tip (he hauled Naruto's suitcase all the way up the stairs after all) and hurried down to answer Granny Chio's impatient call.
"Kids these days," Naruto sighed at the memory, and stood up, wanting to put the heavy weight on the chair, when his vision suddenly turned black and the room took a spin before his eyes. Luckily, he managed to balance himself fast enough to avoid falling backwards and dropping the suitcase on himself.
"Damn it," Naruto took a shallow breath and, finally setting the thing down, took a couple of steps to sink heavily onto the bed. That was one of the reasons he took the vacation. His cycle.
Naruto has always been a serious and selfless worker, and took his job very close to heart. He knew he wanted to go into social service since he was a kid, mostly because of Iruka – a social worker who got his case when he lost his parents at thirteen to a car accident on a busy highway one spring afternoon. The circumstances of their death were also why Naruto found his calling so early. The irony was that it wasn't raining that day, on the contrary, the weather was sunny and warm. It wasn't some drunk asshole who ran into his parents' car, nor was it their fault – his father had always been a careful driver. It was a teenager, a beta, who threw himself under the car.
When Naruto learned of the tragedy – from the officer who came to visit their residence that evening, - he thought he would always hate that beta. But Iruka kept him updated on the proceedings of the case, that was started by the family of a young businessman, who died in the collision of several other cars, provoked by the teenager's suicide. It was hard, but Naruto was finally able to forgive him. More than that, he decided he wanted to prevent any such cases and help those who are in need until it is too late. He learned that the beta who took his and several other lives that day was severely abused at home, and his timid nature prevented him from reaching out for help. Naruto knew, if he were given the chance, he would have helped him, would have done anything in his power to prevent the fatal decision the kid took that day. That was what he was doing now.
Unfortunately, and partially due to his omega nature, Naruto was very compassionate, and the most difficult cases left him in a dull daze for more than a week at times. He managed to cope with it, but not without the help of his physician, Tsunade, who was less than happy to prescribe him the suppressants he needed. Of course, she warned him against taking them without breaks, but Naruto chose to ignore these warnings, thinking that his less prominent omega side would be more beneficial to his work. One thing was to stay at the office, where more than half of the staff were either omegas or betas, quite another thing was to go on inspection into poor and dangerous neighbourhoods. Naruto knew he could stand his back, but still thought he looked more authoritative when he didn't feel the need to bend his head every time a pissed-off and sometimes (more often than not) inebriated alpha shouted, looking down on his 5'6" tall self.
However, every convenience has to have its price, and last month Naruto finally had to acknowledge it. While Tsunade strongly recommended him monthly check-ups, with his schedule, Naruto barely managed to visit her every three months. When he woke up all burning up and almost broke his leg trying to stumble to the bathroom as fast as he could before he inevitably emptied his badly aching stomach on the light blue carpet in the living room, the blond realised that something must be terribly wrong with him. He thought that, perhaps, he should have taken earlier the call his body was obviously giving him all week with splitting headaches and nausea every morning. But Naruto stubbornly wrote it off as a weird case of flu or something.
'Or something', according to a rather exasperated Tsunade, turned out to be a severe case of hormonal disbalance. When Naruto dared to ask what exactly it incurred, the doctor explained with a saddened sigh that it was his body's reaction to the suppressants - as its natural functions were being constantly sedated by a complex synthesised formula based on the alpha hormones, it gradually started to reject the treatment, causing Naruto much suffering. To that disheartening statement Tsunade had to add another shameful factor - had Naruto been formerly exposed to alpha hormones in necessary proportions, his reaction to suppressants would most probably have been better. To Naruto's owlish stare the impatient beta flatly said "You should've fucked some bloke already".
Yes, at twenty five Naruto was still a virgin. Not that he was a prude or a specially vigorous omega rights fighter (some of whom, he heard, were determined to have relationships only with the representatives of their own gender, and looked upon submitting to an alpha as something below them), but he could see their point, kind of.
That didn't change the fact that his body went all out on him because of his gender's basic needs, and something had to be done for him to function properly again. Tsunade's immediate suggestion was that he went off suppressants until his bodily functions return to the norm, and Naruto had nothing to say against it.
So here he was, off his pills and close to nature. He just hoped it wouldn't take him too long to recover. The start of autumn always proved to be extremely busy for the social services - with the colder months setting in the homeless needed more tending to in soup kitchens and shelters, the seasonal depression added pressure on the hotlines and the worsening weather conditions rose the risk of fatal accidents that often led to the need in counselling. Thus, Naruto felt he was obliged to return by the end of summer to take on his duties in Konoha, one of the busiest cities in the Fire country.
But for now his main goal was to regain his good health, which he was going to do with the same determination that he did his job. When the omega felt that his head was no longer spinning, he carefully stood up again and proceeded with his plan for the morning. When he unzipped the suitcase, his eyes fell upon the books that he put on top of the clothes. Those were his mother's legacy, and his guilty pleasure. Romance novels, the corniest ones at that, but selected with good taste. Well, maybe Naruto thought so because it was his mother who read them, but he didn't care, he liked them too.
Those were traditional 'omega meets the perfect alpha' books, often with a lot of unexpected plot twists which keep you on edge when you read, even though the outcome is always a happily ever after. Betas were rarely introduced in these stories as independent interesting characters, but Naruto never concentrated too much on that fact. For him the romantic plots were like intricately made cardboard doll houses with the dolls, beautifully shaped and cut, inside them. They had little to do with reality, as the circumstances in which the two destined lovers met were way too perfect, and their love too blinding and all-consuming to be true.
In his mother's novels an omega never had to worry about more than their looks, their household and their honour, which was always taken by the alpha of their choice - of course, the one with the perfect lineage, potent genes and a good fortune to make his new family's life as comfortable as possible. 'If only it was that simple,' Naruto thought, remembering some of the toughest cases he went through at the office, when asked to sort out the old files. The world was cruel to all genders equally, and the stories of their lives seldomly had happy endings.
If somebody asked Naruto why he read such unrealistic saccharine novels (and he hoped this day would never come, as he most certainly would die of embarrassment before he could formulate a proper answer), he would probably say it was to keep his mother's memory and her unwavering faith in the good side of things and everybody's equal right for happiness. But deep down the blond knew that it was for his own sake as well. He was constantly faced with the ugly side of life and wanted something that would make him forget about it. So he immersed himself into the dream world of fiction. There were, of course, plots that included dramatic events, like a kidnapping, clashing social statuses, evil siblings, tragic misunderstandings and the like. But those only made the stories better in Naruto's opinion, because the good always prevailed in the end. What also made an important part of romantic stories was a special attention to scenting.
Naruto knew from the anthropology class he took at university that quite a long time ago alphas and omegas under certain circumstances (usually when their strongest emotions such as anger, lust, or fear came to the fore) were able to emit much more potent scents than betas. It was part of their socialising mechanism, and helped them to translate their intentions without other means of communication. Back at that time alphas and omegas were still able to shift into their ancestors' animalistic forms, a skill that betas lost much earlier together with secondary animal features - a heightened sense of smell, a sharper sight, faster reactions, stronger bones and quicker regeneration. Throughout the ages alphas and omegas lost most of these qualities too, and were now almost equal to betas, but the memory of the strong bond that has always existed between the two genders persisted.
Aside from the purely natural reaction omegas and alphas had in each other's presence, the show industry chose the most popular trope - the mating bond - and exploited it to no end. They even included betas in the most outrageous scenarios to attract more customers and sell more products. One time at the pharmacy Naruto saw alpha and omega scent essences, whose bright stickers boasted that these synthetic scents could increase one's libido to prolong the night of pleasure, or attract the opposite gender like the natural ones.
It would be funny, Naruto thought, if an alpha or an omega really took a fake scent for the real one, but suspected it would be partly the romance writers' fault. He never understood why they kept comparing natural scents to those of fruits or flowers, or even abstract things like wind on a rainy day or warm river sand. When he read such descriptions he could never guess what it must be - mild, strong, salty, bitter? You could never guess with these metaphors, or whatever those are called. Sometimes Naruto thought he would like his scent to resemble something concrete - like ramen, you could never mistake that for anything. Instead, when he tried to describe what he smelled like when he caught a whiff before taking a shower or during his heats, the only thing that came to mind was - strong. He couldn't place it directly in the sweet, bitter or salty category. Maybe it was the mix of all three. It didn't put him off too much, so he guessed it was okay.
At times Naruto caught himself fantasising what it would be like to live a life of an omega from one of mom's books. To be swept off his feet by a strong and confident alpha who would take him to the stars in his big and comforting hands. 'Too easy,' he berated himself then with a scoff. Such fairy tales were just not meant to be. At least not for him.